55 



colonies unaided. L. jiiliginosus is thus a case of h\-per-temporary 

 social parasitism. 



It should be noted that the L. umbratus workers of this colony 

 readily took in pupœ of L. niger and L. flavus. Some, including 

 all the female pupœ, were used as food, but others became workers 

 and lived unmolested in the nest for some time. 



Founding of Colonies by the Slave-m.\ker, F. S.anguine.a. 



It is no less true in the case of F. sanguínea than with species 

 of the F. rufa and F. exsecta groups, that the females are unable 

 to found colonies alone. As Wasmann has shown, the founding 

 of F. sanguinca colonies is chiefly brought about by branch 

 and twin nests, which gradually spread over a large area. After 

 the marriage-flight the ^-oung females are received back into 

 some of these nests, but a female is received with the greatest 

 hostility into a strange F. sanguinca nest. 



In September 1908 Crawley found a deälated female wander- 

 ing about at Wellington College. She was attacked by the 

 workers of several different colonies in the neighbourhood to 

 which she was introduced. She was repeatedly attacked when 

 placed in a nest from Wellington College during the autumn 

 and winter, but in March 1909 workers from the same nest of 

 their own accord carried her into their nest and adopted her. 



Again DoNiSTHORPE had a nest from Woking taken in 1910, 

 whose queen died on May ist, 1911. On the 5th a female, also 

 from Woking, was introduced to this colony and accepted. On 

 the 27th a worker, a slave {F. fusca), and another female from 

 another nest at Woking were introduced. The workers were 

 killed, and the female accepted. Both these females are alive 

 and well to-day in the nest, and broods have been brought up 

 from their eggs. The acce])tances were also in tlie sj;ring, when 

 the ants perhaps fee'l the want of a fertile female more than 

 in the autumn. 



It has been ])roved that isolated females do not bring up 

 their own eggs. Donisthorpe in 1909 took a number of old 

 fertile females anel isolated them in bowls, with damp sponges 

 and sand. They remaineel for months without laying or exca- 

 vating in the >and, and eventually died. Other> lu' isol.itt d 



